


Chain Twink and Dr. Sexy Angsty Reunion

by sanakan



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Angst, Awkward Tension, I don’t know how to tag a damn fic, I guess? I’m not actually sure what slow burn is, I was High then and I’m high now, IT’S LEORIOS BIRTHDAY I HAVE TO POST SOMETHING so here we are, Leorio being nice medic, M/M, Pining, Slow Burn, aries bullshit, did I edit this? I don’t know, i don’t know what this is so i’ll Guess, it’s when. It takes a while. Right, more like Kurapika making it awkwardly tense, on leorio’s end at least, uuuuhhhhhhhhgghh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2019-11-08 23:33:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17990618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanakan/pseuds/sanakan
Summary: Kurapika and Leorio have been on the same ship for how long? And they haven’t kissed? No. I am going to make them kiss.Eventually. When they’re done with the angst.





	1. Chapter 1

A virus of some sort, characterized by flu-like symptoms, has swept through the third tierof the Black Whale over the past few weeks. Every day, a new wave of feverish passengers comes sniffling through the doorway. It wouldn’t be too serious if not for the limited supply of medication; even over-the-counter drugs are being rationed. As it is, only the most vulnerable cases — young children and the elderly, mostly — receive what Leorio world consider adequate treatment. The rest get sent back to their cabins with a saline rinse, a few doses of off-brand acetaminophen, a paper mask, and an apology. 

The virus, however, is the least of Leorio’s worries. Some unknown chaos has wreaked enough havoc to overwhelm the undersized fourth and fifth tier clinics. Leorio never thought he might have to wield his political power as a zodiac to be be allowed to treat people; he certainly never thought he would have to bribe soldiers. With the ship under martial law, however, moving between tiers to help treat injuries at the pitifully small and understaffed lower-tier clinics has forced his hand.

The injuries, as well as the deaths, on all floors have been piling up at a steady rate. He’s heard of the gang wars and serial killings, and seen the evidence in the growing number of passengers presenting with blunt force trauma and gunshot wounds—but something else is afoot, as well. Something that nobody could have prepared for.

Leorio discards his rubber gloves with two aggressive snaps and, for what feels like the millionth time that day, washes his hands. The anger that has slowly but steadily grown in him since he boarded the boat is nearing its boiling point; the realization that the Black Whale is designed to kill its passengers from the third floor down hits him harder every day. He and Cheadle used to whisper about it where no one could hear them, attempting to come up with ways to remedy the situation and, ultimately, always coming up short. Now, they can only make predictions about the impending disaster.

The situation downstairs, they realized, was quickly escalating.

“This virus is only a minor issue, compared to what’s going to happen when we run out of supplies to treat wounds,” Cheadle had said only hours ago, as she and Leorio counted out their inventory of medicine and supplies. “The serious injuries are increasing. This ship has two wars going on within it—perhaps three.”

“I know,” Leorio had muttered in response. They’d already had patients die of blood loss shortly after arriving at the clinic—patients who may have lived, had blood transfusions been a possibility. “The morgue is gonna be full by the time we make it to the continent. There’s a morgue, isn’t there? There has to be, right?”

“I don’t know, but I hope so. Otherwise, the bodies…”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the bodies were being thrown into the ocean. Disgusted, but not surprised.”

“Unfortunately, I feel the same way.”

The conversation had ended there.

Leorio is affixing butterfly closures to a teary-eyed child’s wounded finger when his day takes an unexpected turn. 

“There’s someone waiting for you outside,” a nurse tells him. “He wouldn’t tell me his name or what he needed, but I think he’s a bodyguard from the first tier.”

“Tell him I’m busy,” Leorio snaps, regretting it immediately. He sighs. “Sorry. Can you tell him to wait?”

“He said it was urgent.”

“Then send Cheadle.”

The nurse purses her lips. “He said it had to be you.”

Leorio shakes his head. “I’ll only need a minute to finish this,” he says. He turns his head to face his patient. “Don’t worry, kiddo,” he says, flashing the sunniest smile he can muster. “I’m not leaving until I’ve patched you up, alright?”

The child nods, sniffling. Her mother had brought her in, holding her uninjured hand and scolding her for her clumsiness. She’s a timid little girl, eight years old and small for her age, quiet and polite. Though she continues to cry ever so softly, Leorio is impressed by the girl’s composure; she’s kept mostly still through the whole thing, even when he pressed the edges of the laceration together.

“You’re a tough one,” he says. She nods, straightening her back resolutely and wiping her tears with her sleeve. “You know, these bandages I’m putting on your finger right now are called butterfly stitches. Isn’t that cool?”

“I like butterflies,” she agrees. 

“That’s the spirit.”

When Leorio finishes talking to the girl’s mother, he stuffs his hands in his pockets and saunters towards the door. He pushes it open with one broad shoulder, thinking, this better be good.

Is it good, finding Kurapika on the other side? 

It’s exactly what Leorio wanted when he’d suggested Kurapika as a replacement for Pariston, but...not like this. Not with this wall of silent tension between them.

Leorio straightens his posture and crosses his arms, willing himself to keep a neutral expression. If Leorio didn’t remember the reverent, somber care with which Kurapika cared for his traditional Kurta clothes, the sight of Kurapika standing before him in his tailored suit and silk tie would take his breath away; instead, it knocks the wind out of him. The last vestiges of the Kurapika from those memories, the wounded but steadfast Kurapika who folded his clothes ever so delicately before they went to bed, is hidden behind layers of fatigue. His once-soft features have grown sharper since the last time they saw each other, the delicate skin around his eyes painted dark by exhaustion.  
Yet, in spite of it all, he is still so beautiful. 

Kurapika nods. “Leorio.”

“Kurapika.” 

They stand still in the empty hallway, quiet. Kurapika’s lips part for a moment, and one hand leaves his pocket, only to fall back to his side with the closing of his mouth. a flicker of annoyance pushes Leorio to break the silence. “Are you gonna tell me what it is that you need?”

Kurapika takes a breath. “I need a favor.”

Leorio’s heart becomes a leaden weight in his chest. “Of course you do,” he grunts. “I’d be shocked if you came down here to see me, you know, as a friend.”

Kurapika lowers his gaze. “I’m sorry. I wish it didn’t have to be like this, but—“ he stops mid-sentence, his head down so his hair falls over his face. 

With his hands on his hips, Leorio sighs. “I’m not mad at you, Kurapika. Just concerned. What do you need help with?” 

Another pause. “Walk with me.”

Leorio raises one eyebrow, but he obliges. They walk side-by-side in silence, Kurapika taking long strides with their gaze pointed laser-sharp down the hallway. Leorio, meanwhile, snatches quick glances at Kurapika through the corner of his eye, adjusting his glasses more than is necessary. 

“Hey, how did you even get down here?” He inquires.

They turn a corner. “I had the royal military open the bulkead for me,” Kurapika intones, barely audible.

“The bulkhead?” Leorio balks. “You mean the one that’s only supposed to be opened in emergencies?”

“Leorio!” Kurapika makes eye contact with Leorio for the first time since they started walking. “Keep your voice down!”

Leorio shoves his hands in his pockets and stares at the ground. They’re heading towards a narrow corridor. “How much did you pay?” he asks in a whisper. “To get through?”

“I asked what they’re getting paid for this voyage and doubled that amount. Why?”

“I don’t make as much money as you,” Leorio groans. “I’m not guarding a queen or a mob boss’s daughter. Paying my way back down here is gonna make a real dent in my bank account.”

Brow furrowed, Kurapika says, “I never expected you to pay. I’m handling that.”

Leorio holds back a sigh of relief. “Working for the mob sure pays a lot, huh?”

“In more ways than one.”  
\--

Kurapika closes the door and locks it with a soft click. Leorio stands by an ornate lamp a few awkward feet away, rubbing his chin at the expanse of lavish rugs on dark cypress hardwood. Should he take his shoes off? “Is this your room, Kurapika?”

“I don’t sleep here,” Kurapika answers, helpfully. Hands in his pockets, he crosses the threshold--passing Leorio without a look--to a cavernous armoire, no doubt an antique. So shoes are fine, then. 

Leorio exhales and steps a little closer, tightens his grip on his case of medical supplies. Why wouldn’t Kurapika sleep here? He’s never seen a bed so big and extravagant. Maybe he just doesn’t sleep? “Then you wouldn’t mind if I sat on it, right?”

“Do what you want.”

With a grin, Leorio kicks off his shoes, throws himself onto the bed and sinks into the mattress, making an ungodly noise that prompts Kurapika to look over their shoulder with a frown. “Quiet. Please. I don’t wanna draw attention.”

Lifting one eyebrow, Leorio begins, “Why? Don’t want anyone to think we’re--”

Kurapika throws a full suit, a tie, and a button-down shirt, all still on their hangers, onto Leorio. “Those scrubs you’re wearing look dirty, and you smell like human suffering and antiseptic--”

“Hey!”

“I’m only being truthful,” Kurapika says with a shrug. “I know it’s not your fault.” 

“Why do you have a suit in my size, anyway?” Leorio asks. He smirks. “Did you see them and think, ‘Leorio would look so handsome in this, I just have to get it for him?’ Thank you for thinking of me.”

“No, they belonged to my dead coworker,” Kurapika says in a monotone. “So they might actually be a bit short. I thought you’d probably come in looking grimy and overworked, and I was right, so I looked around all of the empty cabins.” Kurapika clears his throat. “Look, in the scrubs, you stick out like a sore thumb. I don’t want anyone to notice that I’m bringing medical personnel into the Queen’s room, alright?”

Leorio jerks upright. One of the coat hangers catches on his collar as the clothes slide off of him. “What? The queen? Your--Your dead coworker?”

“It’s really nothing. Prince Woble has been sneezing every now and then. I doubt it’s anything more than a cold, but the queen is, understandably, very anxious about her daughter right now. She wants a doctor to take a look at the Prince, but neither she nor I trust any of the doctors onboard.”

Leorio squints at him. “What about Cheadle?”

Kurapika passes Leorio again to stand at the dresser, where he picks up a bottle of cologne. “Would you prefer Comme Des Garcons 2,” he sets it down on the mahogany, picks up another, “or Maison Margiela Wicked Love? It smells like gunmetal and roses.” 

“I get it, Kurapika. You’re a rich mafia prince now. Even the bags under your eyes are designer. Now answer the question.” Leorio makes eye contact with Kurapika’s reflection.

Kurapika puts the cologne down gingerly. “Cheadle was my first choice..”

Kurapika turns to look at him. In that first half-second of eye contact, before Kurapika can blink it away, Leorio catches sight of the quickest gleam of emotion, something he can’t quite read--something like a candle flame snuffed out between Kurapika’s dark eyelids. With his hands behind his back, Kurapika points his gaze downward. In the crystalline light of the chandelier overhead, his lashes cast shadows along his cheekbones.

“...But,” Kurapika continues, “Queen Oito asked me if I trusted Cheadle with my life.”

Leorio straightens his spine. “You don’t?”

“It’s not that I don’t trust her, I…” His voice trails off. He clears his throat and says, without looking at Leorio, “...There’s only one person on this ship that I trust with my life.”


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fuck editing I guess, I just want to update this so here, the reason why I initially started writing this: Leorio meets the baby.

Pursing his lips, Leorio unhooks the coat hanger from his collar—it’s the suit jacket—and checks the tags on the garment. Some designer with a name he can’t pronounce.

“...So,” Kurapika says. He opens a drawer. “What about Tom Ford? I have a few different kinds…”

“Way to avoid my question. I smell that bad?”

An unexpected chuckle from Kurapika, who turns to cross the threshold between the two of them. His glossy leather brogues sink into the plush rug with each step. “Like I said, human suffering and antiseptic.” He leans in close to Leorio’s face. “God, when was the last time you shaved?”   
“...None of your business.”

“Shave, please. There’s a straight razor and shaving cream in the bathroom.” He gestures towards the bathroom in question.

“Did that belong to your dead coworker, too?”

“Not the same one as the clothes, but yes.”

“I am not shaving with a dead guy’s razor. Or wearing a dead guy’s clothes.”

“Please? For me?”

Leorio rubs his chin. It’s rougher than he remembers. “What, you don’t like the five o’clock shadow?” He asks, attempting to hide a pang of insecurity with a smirk. A slight twitch in one eyebrow gives him away. Praying against all odds that Kurapika didn’t notice it, he continues, “I think it’s kind of sexy.”

Kurapika rolls his eyes, but one corner of his mouth turns up ever so slightly. “Stubborn as always.”

“You’re calling me stubborn? You refused to pick up the phone for how long? Whatever. Fine.” He starts to pull his scrubs off over his head. 

When his shirt is off and Leorio can see again, he notices with a start that Kurapika’s cheeks have gone from sallow to flushed. 

“Are you blushing?”

Kurapika turns his back to Leorio, crosses his arms. “I told you, the bathroom is right there!”

“Nothing you haven’t seen before. Hell, we only started to get along after the first time you saw me shirtless, remember?” Leorio flexes his biceps. “I understand, though. Ladies love it, too.”

Kurapika turns his head rapidly, his earring glinting scarlet in the light of the chandelier. “Ladies?”

Leorio stands up, holding the rest of the dead man’s clothing. “You know, women? I’m sure you’ve heard of them.”

Kurapika turns away again, but Leorio catches him watching from the corner of his eye as he passes by to enter the bathroom. 

\---

“Queen Oito, this is Leorio, the friend I mentioned. He’s an excellent medic, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t trust him with.”

Flustered by the praise, Leorio claps Kurapika on the back harder than intended. Kurapika doesn’t flinch. 

“Ah, Kurapika, I’m not even—I’m not a doctor yet!”

Now Kurapika flinches. Sweating, Leorio looks at Oito and adds, “I, uh, I’ve done some doctor things, though. I can remove inoperable tumors with Nen. My professors at med school think that’s pretty cool.”

The silent queen stares back at Leorio from under furrowed brows. Oito’s dark irises reflect his own nervous expression back at him. Her posture is taut with a fierce sort of fear, the coiled anxiety of fight-or-flight instincts waiting to spring forth. Against her chest, the infant girl-prince sniffles and coos. Without looking away from Leorio, Oito gives her gentle pats on the back with one dainty hand. To the queen’s left, a small, stocky woman stands watching. To her right, a man with spiky hair and bags under his eyes stands guard. He eyes Leorio with one brow raised.

“I’m honored to meet you, uh, your highness,” Leorio says, crossing the room to the bed where the queen sits cradling her daughter. 

“You don’t have to call me that.”

Leorio sets his case of medical supplies down on the nearby nightstand and opens it to retrieve a thermometer. He feels Kurapika’s eyes on him as he kneels to get at eye level with the prince, who watches him with wide, curious eyes. 

“Thank you, Miss...Queen Oito.” Getting a closer look at the baby, he can’t help but smile. “That’s a beautiful baby you’ve got there. May I hold her?”

Oito’s gaze flickers towards her daughter, then at Kurapika, then back at Leorio. She nods. “Careful. She’s not always comfortable with strangers, and she’ll grab at your tie for sure.”

Leorio receives the offered prince in his arms with gentle reverence. She’s of a good, healthy size, with rosy cheeks and a squirming energy about her. She has her mother’s curls and her wide, intelligent eyes. Woble extends her chubby fingers to make the promised grab at the silk tie Kurapika lent him. He shifts her weight into the crook of one elbow.

“Now this is a top-notch baby. Absolutely the cutest baby I’ve ever seen. Aren’t you, Prince Woble?”

“Ga,” Woble babbles. “Baa aah.” She pulls at his tie and giggles at the sound he makes in response; he hadn’t expected her to be so strong. Heart overflowing, Leorio smiles back. 

“Do you mind me sitting down next to you, Queen Oito?” Leorio asks. “Woble here will probably be uncomfortable with this thermometer in her ear, so I want her to see you and know you’re there.”

Oito nods. “Of course I don’t mind. I’ve never seen Woble so calm with a new person, not since Kurapika held her for the first time.”

“She sure isn’t like that with me,” says the spiky-haired man.

The small woman quips, “that’s because you don’t know how to hold a baby, Bill.”

As Leorio sits down on the bed next to the queen, he notices a weathered smile gently touching the corners of Kurapika’s lips, his eyes. When was the last time Leorio saw Kurapika smiling? The park in Yorknew City, during that last sunlit lull where he thought, where they all thought, that fate had saved Kurapika from himself? The smell of late summer greenery, the ebullient tumult that was Gon and Killua, Kurapika’s laughter. A family. The laughter is the echo of a memory now, and the family is scattered; the pieces left are tattered at the edges. 

At the sound of Woble babbling, Leorio pulls away from the bittersweet nostalgia. Was I staring? Shit. Eyebags over there must’ve noticed. Shit. Fuck. Whatever. Back to the baby. 

“Alright, little Prince,” he says, turning his attention back to his patient with a grin, “Things are about to get weird for a minute.” Leorio lays her down on the bed and holds up the thermometer. “Ready?”

Woble kicks her little feet, a bubble forming at one nostril as she watches him. Gross, but charming. He converses with her in soft tones as he puts the thermometer in her ear: “How are you doing today, miss Woble? I hear you’ve been sneezing. Some cruise this is, huh? I’m not a fan of the food. Hold still, now.”

“Ba bu!”

“I know, I know, bear with me, I’ll be done poking your ear in a minute.”

With a quick beep, the prince’s temperature reads normal. “Temperature’s good, Queen Oito.” He leans towards the night stand and reaches for his stethoscope. In turn, Woble reaches for Leorio. “I’ll proceed with a general checkup, just to make sure.”

“Thank you, Leorio,” the queen says. Her weary smile reminds him of Kurapika’s. “You’re really soothing, has anyone ever told you that?”

**Author's Note:**

> There will be a chapter 2 if I get over my paralyzing fear of writing badly and finish it :) it’s halfway done I’m just a loser :)


End file.
